It looks like Hulu’s reign as the undisputed king of high quality online video is about to come to an end, as Universal Music Group is planning to launch a “Hulu-like” video portal. UMG’s project would offer professionally produced music videos from artists such as The Killers, Mariah Carey, Kanye West and Amy Winehouse as well as original programming.

Doug Morris, chairman and CEO of Universal is leading the charge for this new service, which has the potential to generate more revenue from music videos and offer artists a new and polished platform to show off their talents. Right now, YouTube is the leading site to view music videos online, since all four of the major labels (Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group) have licensed content to the site.

The issues that still remain with YouTube are that they only see ad revenue from 3 percent of their videos, whereas Hulu is able to get ad revenue from 100 percent of their videos. This is because advertisers are more likely to put their advertising dollars into a brand that is well established, instead of user-generated content.

It should be mentioned that UMG will soon be talking with YouTube about renewing its licenses to display their content, since their current deal is up at the end of the year. However, we don't anticipate UMG pulling out of Youtube since they are reportedly happy with the promotional benefits provided to them by YouTube.

So who knows? Perhaps all of this is idle talk, or it is a legitimate venture in the works. Chances are good that we’ll find out more about this once the renewal talks have taken place.

Various streaming video services, and not just Youtube, have found favor among internet users in Britain and that has driven people away from P2P. Furthermore, according to PlusNet’s Dave Tomlinson, people are turning to streaming videos as they want to access content instantly.

All ISPs unequivocally despise P2P traffic and some have even devised clandestine methods to suppress it. There machinations against P2P are always wrapped in the puritanical garb of fighting piracy. Although streaming services are also used for propagating copyrighted content, the percentage of such unauthorized content is nothing compared to P2P. So ISPs might not have a moral pretext to combat streaming video, if it becomes as popular as P2P.

Since the advent of web2.0 and the nefarious abundance of fallacy in news stories propagated by the mainstream media, an increasing number of individuals have begun turning to the Internet and subsequently Youtube to find and view political coverage. Youtube has become a haven for political junkies consequently plumping the site with snarky commentary arguing every point of view from here to Guantanamo bay. Recognizing this high degree of politically charged activity Google has decided to debut one of its innovative new technologies on what could be called the 'Youtube Politics Homepage'.

Will this new tech bring about a shift in the way politicians attempt to garner votes? Have Politicians attempted to manipulate the technology in their favor?

Google is currently exploring all possible methods of milking the Youtube cow despite having deemed revenues from the website to be immaterial during it Q1 filing.

It has now dawned upon Google that professionally made content is more lucrative to advertisers than amateur videos, and can help it recover the $1.65 billion Youtube acquisition costs. The search engine major’s enlightenment will greatly benefit Hollywood companies, who have been clamoring about the ease with which their interests are compromised on piracy hotbeds like Youtube.

Google knows that to monetize copyrighted movie and TV videos with advertisements it will have to legitimize their use first, which it plans to do with revenue sharing deals with major Hollywood studios. It recently struck a revenue sharing deal with Lionsgate and is in talks with other media companies, although very little is known at this stage.

Does it mean that Google will completely prevent users from uploading copyrighted content - something it has failed to do hitherto? Most probably that won’t be the case as it is currently working on a new technology that will help identify copyrighted content and allow its rightful owners to display ads next to it without the video being taken down.

Tivo’s long awaited YouTube player goes live today, it was first announced back in March. This lets Tivo users stream YouTube videos right to their boxes. It is part of the Tivo 9.4 update that is going out to all Tivo’s this month, but you have to have Series 3 or better to get the feature. Series 2 owners are left out in the cold.

Right now you can't log into your YouTube account but there is a minor update coming in 2 months will incorporate that feature. Tivo says in a press release, “Soon, users will also be able to log into their YouTube accounts directly through the TV to access their videos, channels and playlists, making the experience even richer.”

Now, if Tivo would just make it so I could Stream my TV to my laptop over the internet, like on Slingbox, I’d be in heaven!

High definition used to be synonymous with high price, but today everything from HDTVs to now HD camcorders can be had without downgrading that upcoming anniversary gift from a diamond bracelet to a cubic zirconia. But a high definition camcorder for under 200 bones? You betcha.

DXG's new pocket-sized camcorder looks to capture not only the budget market, but tries to appeal to the social computing crowd at the same time. For MSRP $179, the DXG-567V HD packs a 5.0 megapixel CMOS sensor the company claims is capable of H.264 video compression at up to a 1280x720 resolution at 30 frames-per-second. And while it may look like an MP3 player at a glance, DXG says the simplified controls are intended to make it easy to use for "even Grandma Selma." She can even get one in pink if she desires. Or blue, black, or red.

Out of the box, DXG includes ArcSoft's TotalMedia Extreme video editing software, and the company's own Rapid Blog Manager software, so Selma's grandkids have a quick and easy way to upload videos to YouTube's repository of gems like 'Leave Brittany Alone' (NSFW) and, well, this (hey, hey).

It seems that either Viacom came to their senses about making Google turn over user data on YouTube, or they didn’t like the bad press that their suit was generating. They have reached a deal to protect the privacy YouTube watchers everywhere and will allow Google to anonymize YouTube user data.

Previously Viacom succeeded in getting Judge Louis Stanton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to order Google to turn over as evidence a database what videos users watch, the users' computer addresses, and their usernames. Many groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the order "threatens to expose deeply private information" and violated the Video Privacy Protection Act. Whether the Act, created when VCRs were high tech, could be applied to YouTube was debatable. Viacom and Google’s deal avoids the legal snarl all together.

If you are into deciphering legalese (and we can assume you are into self flagellation too) you can read the details here.

As Google looks to sell more ads for its YouTube subsidiary in an attempt to make the video site more profitable, San Francisco video ad network VideoEgg thinks it has a better way. VideoEgg announced the launch of five new kinds of video ads designed to "give advertisers more effective engagement with users inside social environments." The new features include:

SHOP: Bring the browser to the user, merchandising multiple items in a single real-time ad experiences

SHARE: Viral capabilities help spread the message through virtually any communication or social channel

VideoEgg's pricing model is based on a cost per engagement (CPE) instead of tallying up page views or click counts. And while VideoEgg hasn't made mention of Google or YouTube, the new features might make for a better alternative than the pre- and post-roll ads Google is reportedly trying to sell.

At just four months old, VideoEgg's future has yet to be decided, but in that short, over 50 brands including Microsoft, Comcast, Disney, Nike, GM, Hershey, and others have advertised across the VideoEgg network. Could Google/YouTube be next?

Once upon a time, YouTube could be relied on to find that funny snippet from last night's sitcom episode to share with family and friends that may have missed it. Now it's a crap shoot whether the video you're looking for will exist, or if it's been deleted over copyright concerns like so many others. And if you do find the clip you're looking for, are you giving up any privacy rights to watch it? Throw in the crummy video quality (Tip: Add &fmt=18 to the end of YouTube URLs), and one has to wonder if there's any suckage left to bestow upon YouTube.

Apparently there is; The Wall Street Journal reports Google is looking to sell pre-roll and post-roll ads because, well, the expected $200 million in anticipated ad revenue this year evidently isn't enough. Or course, Google must first find willing advertisers, a task that could prove more difficult than it seems. According to the story, Google is only selling ads against video clips that been approved by media companies and other partners, which equates to just 4 percent of the total clips on YouTube. That means the overwhelming majority of videos don't seem to be worth anything to the company. At this pace, could it be long before they're also not worth anything to viewers?

He blamed digital distribution and rampant file-sharing for broadcast TV’s woes. He has a point as digital distribution hasn’t even fully taken off and the Youtubes and iTunes might just be the precursor of bigger things to come, and digitally distributed content will hold sway be it game consoles or TVs.

However, broadcast TV is not going anywhere in large parts of the world that still don’t have a high broadband penetration rate. We have all been told how a certain technology or gadget is headed for its grave only for it to survive; even the radio has managed to survived till now. Tell the whole world what you think about broadcast TV’s fate in the comments section.